The big world experiment: the mobilization of social capital in migrant communities

Migrant organizations can play an important role in the process of integration; through the social capital that they have at their disposal, these organizations increase the political participation of their communities. The social capital of organizations is embodied by the organizational network.It is presupposed that this network is used by organizational leaders to exchange information and collaborate with each other. However, empirical support for this assumption is limited. The mechanism of how social capital works is hypothesized rather than studied. The aim of this book is to gain insight into what the social capital of migrant organizations looks like, and, more importantly, the manner in which organizations use their social capital. The latter is investigated by way of a field experiment: the Big World Experiment.